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Media Buzzes Over Rush and Rove

RUSH: Rush Limbaugh wants purity in the GOP. This morning's CNN American Morning Jim Acosta, the CNN correspondent, reporting about the Delaware race. The cohost, Kiran Chetry, said, "Karl Rove had some harsh things to say about Christine O'Donnell. He said that she had serious character problems, went on to say, 'Why did she mislead voters about her college education?' Serious questions about how she makes her living. Went on to say he doesn't think Republicans can win that seat."

ACOSTA: Essentially Sarah Palin and, you know, Rush Limbaugh and those folks were saying, "Hold on a second, we don't want these establishment Republicans coming perhaps from the moderate or liberal sides of the Republican Party." They want to see more purity in the Republican Party and they think Christine O'Donnell will help bring that.

RUSH: Right. Purity. Mr. Acosta, could you tell me the last time the Democrats actually campaigned for the Reagan Democrats? Back in the 1980s there was this phenomenon known as the Reagan Democrats, and of course we welcomed them in to the Republican Party. We welcomed 'em. I don't remember the Democrats campaigning for them. I don't remember the Democrats suggesting we should vote for Reagan Democrats. So why, Mr. Acosta, should we go out and promote Obama Republicans? We're not talking about purity here. We're talking about loyalty. We're talking about right versus wrong. If you're for Obama, become a Democrat and don't tarnish our brand. So then the fill-in cohost, Drew Griffin, said, "Voters didn't vote for Karl Rove. She got the votes. So is there a power shift going on in Washington?"

ACOSTA: There is a big shift going on, and essentially establishment Republicans like Karl Rove are either going to have to play along to get along, or they're gonna find themselves sort of out in the cold. What matters is who wins these races out there. And if Sharron Angle can somehow pull off this upset over Harry Reid out in Nevada, you're going to have a lot of folks like Sarah Palin, like these more conservative types in the Republican Party like Rush Limbaugh saying, "See, we told you so."

RUSH: Ha. Yes, folks, to answer your question, it still is funny to sit here and listen to these people talk about me. I already said, "I told you so." The second book was "See, I Told You So." Now, last night Rove was back on Fox. He was on Fox this morning. He's doubled down against Christine O'Donnell. I got e-mails. I was not watching Fox last night. I was sitting there, Kathryn and I were talking about some stuff we gotta do in the future and all of a sudden the iPhone starts going nuts. I look at it, I'm getting e-mails: "Greta is talking about you, Rove is talking about you. Greta's playing your comments about Rove." I said, "I'm sorry, I'm missing it, I'm not watching it." One e-mail said: "Rove's committing political suicide, we don't understand this. Can you help us understand what's going on?" I said, "I can't explain this." So on the Greta replay, I stayed up to watch it, and the Greta replay is at one o'clock. I watched it. We got a few sound bites from it. This is before talking with Rove. She played this sound bite for him to react to.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Where's the importance of party unity now? We keep talking party unity up 'til this election. Now they don't care about party unity. "Fifty-first vote, that's all this election is about, Limbaugh. We gotta get the 51st vote. We gotta get control of the Senate. We know we're gonna get control of the House. We gotta get control of the Senate." Now all of a sudden they don't care about it. The 51st vote might be Christine O'Donnell, so they don't want to control the Senate? Where's the big tent? They keep telling us we have to have a big tent. The Republican Party is gonna be the big tent. Well, where is the tent? The tent has collapsed. The truth is there never was a tent.

ROVE: Look, I think there is a big tent. For example, Christine O'Donnell got $750,000 according to her campaign today in Internet contributions. There is a big tent. And look, we saw it last night. The Tea Party candidate in New Hampshire lost to the non-Tea Party candidate who is still a pretty good conservative. We saw it in Kansas, both Sarah Palin and I backed the Tea Party favorite, Todd Tiahrt and Jerry Moran, the more moderate member, won, so we do have a big party.

RUSH: And then turns his sights on Christine O'Donnell again. Van Susteren says, "If it's a big party, and I guess I'm not so sure how big I would be in a similar situation, but would you not think Congressman Mike Castle would have called to congratulate her, endorsed her or something?"

ROVE: Yeah, I know, but look, you gotta give people a chance to sorta work their way through this. Remember, just a couple of weeks ago the O'Donnell campaign was helping pedal the rumor that he'd had an affair with a young man. The man is married, been married to the same woman for many decades.

RUSH: I think all that's being denied. Anyway, clearly there's something personal here to explain all of this. At any rate, we now move on to MSNBC, where -- (interruption) Snerdley, this kind of stuff was in the campaign throughout the last week of it. I mean Castle was saying weird things like she wants to take your pornography away from you. It was going back and forth. Castle went out and said I was accusing him of voting to impeach Bush, and I didn't. Anyway, they were talking about this at MessNBC on Hardball last night, Chris Matthews speaking with F. Chuck Todd. Matthews said: "Is Rush right; Karl Rove right? Bad night; good night?"

TODD: If you were a Rush Limbaugh conservative, a Jim DeMint conservative, okay, and you feel like this is where you stand on these issues, then you're right. You have here this split between Karl Rove who still believes political power matters. Sometimes you gotta compromise on your ideology to get it. And Jim DeMint, who says, you know what? Look, you're better off shutting down the government in some form or another or shutting down the party.

RUSH: Let me weigh in on this, 'cause I think people are missing what this is all about, and I don't know, this is just a wild guess. We had the comments from Mike Murphy earlier today that I shared. Mike Murphy, Republican consultant, he's got his underwear in a wad because people are suggesting that the inside-the-Beltway Republicans are out of touch, that they're too moderate, that they're ruling class types. Mike Murphy is a campaign consultant, worked with McCain a couple times, I believe, and so Murphy, "Okay, okay, okay, Palin, DeMint, you know how it's done? You know how to do my job? Fine. Then you go to Delaware right now and you camp out, you live there the next two months and you show us, you show us Georgetown cocktail party types, you show us how it's done. All right?" So obviously some people, these consultants have got their noses out of joint that the unprofessionals, like you and I, claim to know better how to get people elected and how to govern than they do.

Now, what is the difference between us and them? A, it's not a game to us, but B, they are numbers crunchers. Both these guys, Murphy and Karl, deal with 15% to 20% of the electorate. The precious undecideds, independents, whatever you want to call 'em, and they live and breathe in figuring out ways to get those people voting for their candidate. It's not ideological. It's the furthest thing from ideological. It's pure numbers politics. If you have to have a candidate say he's pro-life when he's not, you do it if that's what it's gonna take. If you have a candidate who doesn't believe in immigration and amnesty, but you need that, "Okay, he's going to allow that he might vote," you do that. That 15 to 20%, that's where they live. Their selling point, the reason they get hired in their minds is to deliver a majority of that 15 to 20%. They're numbers crunchers. They live and breathe in the belief that the rock-ribbed on the left and the rock-ribbed on the right are immovable and they're a given percentage in every election and that the only thing that changes their numbers is turnout.

At this dinner party that I keep quoting on Saturday night, I launched into all kinds of people Saturday. I was the only guy saying what I was saying. I felt like I was the circus act at this dinner. I was talking about how I resent this attention being focused on independents and moderates. I said I can't stand so much money and attention being spent on people who won't have the guts to tell us what they think; who sell their votes for slick campaign tactics or what have you. Who are these people? I'd rather go out and try to persuade these people to join us on the basis of principle and ideology rather than play a numbers game and get these people voting every election however we want them to vote based on something that has no staying power. Give me the committed, principled liberal or conservative every day. I'd rather talk to them. I think we've elevated this great unwashed independent group, the moderates, the independent, whatever, the undecideds, we have elevated them to superhuman status. They think they're smarter than everybody else. They think they're more mature than everybody else. They think they're more important than everybody else because consultants of campaigns have told them they are. Every damn one of them, I don't care, you pick a campaign consultant at any television or cable network, at any campaign time and what do they focus on? The independents. They don't focus on ideology.

If a campaign consultant thinks that he has to be a conservative to get your vote he'll do that. He has to call himself a conservative, but now all of a sudden the dynamic is different. Nobody in this cycle is at all concerned with the independent. We are concerned with the saving the country. There is an ideological principle at stake here, a fact of life, serious matter at stake here, and I don't think these guys know how to deal with that in their world of numbers crunching. So maybe they're just trying to hang on. Maybe this cycle is sort of passing them by. Look, I'm guessing here, but I know where they live. And Murphy, "Okay, you show us how it's done. Us Georgetown cocktail types." Obviously he seethes with resentment at being called ruling class cocktail party Washington, DC, insider. Okay, "Palin, okay, DeMint, you go to Delaware, you show us how it's done." This is the professionals versus the amateurs. This is not moderates versus conservatives or liberals versus conservatives. This is the professionals versus what they think are a bunch of rubes.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Mark in Wilmington, Delaware, great to have you on the program, sir. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega dittos.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: And I just wanted to say I think you're a little bit wrong on the race in Delaware. It's considered from the Democrats as Joe Bite Me's seat. And I believe that they wanted Castle to win because in the next cycle they can have Joe Biden's son, Beau, who is the attorney general, run for that seat and win. Now...

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait. I want to follow you on this. Because they think Beau Biden could beat Castle in two years?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: And now they don't know what to do, because if Christine O'Donnell does not beat Coons, then you have two Democratic Senators and there's no room for Joe Bite Me's son Beau Biden.

RUSH: But I thought Beau Bite Me said he didn't want the seat, anyway?

CALLER: He did because he's new on the political scene. He's the new attorney general.

RUSH: Yeah?

CALLER: He hasn't really proved himself yet. He's had a couple setbacks.

RUSH: That's not been a setback for his dad. That's not been a setback for half the Democrats in the Senate. What do you mean prove themselves? I know what you're trying to say.

CALLER: Yeah, well --

RUSH: So you're saying that because the Democrats say there's no way they're gonna elect Christine O'Donnell now?

CALLER: Now, secretly they want to elect her, because they want him to run against her.

RUSH: All right.

CALLER: He has no room to run in the next cycle. Beau Biden

RUSH: Okay, if the Democrats -- and we're told the Democrats run the show. If the Democrats want her to win, she'll win. Ha! Case closed. It's over. And just yesterday they told us she couldn't.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I mean that's really laughable that Beau Biden hasn't yet proved himself? Like Obama has? Ha. Obama's proved himself? If that last caller from Wilmington was right -- and I don't doubt it for a minute. If the game was Castle wins for two years and Beau Biden wins, I'll guarantee you Mike Castle would have probably gladly stepped aside for Beau Biden. And so now we find out that the whole game is in an upset there. The Democrats don't know what to do now. (laughing) Neither does anybody else.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here's Beth in Searcy, Arkansas. I have about 45 seconds but I wanted to get to you.

CALLER: Yes, sir. I was calling to comment on Mr. Rove.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: You know, you were saying how he deals in statistics and numbers, and he has to tell politicians -- you know, tell you -- whatever we want to hear to get our vote.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: That's why he can't get it, because we want the truth. I don't want a lie from him from above. I want the truth about the politicians that I want to vote for, and the American people are tired of being lied to, and that's what he can't get. My neighbors are tired of it; people I go to the church are tired of it. We are fed up.

RUSH: Well, I think one thing is true. I think that is professional political people, particularly inside the Beltway, just don't understand the degree to which a vast majority of the people in this country thinks that the American way of life in this country is under assault, that it's gone way beyond politics as usual. We've never had to deal with anything this destructive and this radical, and it has to be stopped. And they don't hear professional political people in Washington reflecting that at all. They don't hear anything like that. So that's why outsiders are rising up.